He made the whole world memorize the Spanish word for cinnamon: Who is Canelo Álvarez?

He was born in Guadalajara, one of the most crowded and touristic cities in Mexico. He had a difficult childhood because of his red hair. He wasn't very good at school. He loved horseback riding on the farm. He also loved boxing, which his older brothers did. When he was 10 years old, his older brother took a pair of gloves from where they were hanging in the living room and put them on his younger brother's hands. While the freckled boy was beating the punching bag, his brother thought again about his brother's age. What they did was too much for a 10-year-old child. He was very strong, like his great-grandfather.

The eighth Alvarez, little Saul, was taking on a completely different identity in the ring. His future was on the canvas. This talent should not have been wasted.

Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán (born 18 July 1990), known as Canelo Álvarez, is a Mexican professional boxer. He has won multiple world championships in four weight classes from light middleweight to light heavyweight, including unified titles in three of those weight classes and lineal titles in two. Álvarez is the first and only boxer in history to become undisputed champion at super middleweight, having held the WBA (Super), WBC and Ring magazine titles since 2020, and the IBF and WBO titles since 2021.

There are two rumors about his amateur career. Compared to the first one, he played only 20 matches. According to the second, he played 46 matches in his amateur career and lost only two of them. He turned professional at the age of 15. Neither his first name, Saul, nor his last name, Alvarez, were used to call him anymore. Canelo was his new name. Trainer Chepo Reynoso and his son Eddy Reynoso must have been fed up with boxers being given harsh, macho nicknames so they thought of a more naive name. Chepo compared Canelo to a red cow in a herd of all-black cattle. He was the one who attracted the most attention and on top of that, he gave the most milk. Canelo was the most valuable.

This word, which means Cinnamon in Spanish, is identified with Saul Alvarez because of his red hair. In his early years, the feminine version of the word, Canela, was also used to annoy him, but after he brought his opponents to their knees one by one, he was now El Canelo. At the age of 17, his daughter “Emily Cinnamon Alvarez” was born. Now his responsibilities had doubled.

He climbed the ladder very quickly in the professional arena as well as in his private life. In his fifth match, he drew with Jorge Juarez, eight years older than him. When this match took place, Canelo was 16 years old and Juarez was 24 years old. On June 28, 2008 - perhaps in honor of Canelo's 18th birthday - all the boxing brothers of the family entered the ring on the same boxing night. Rigoberto Alvarez, Ramon, Ricardo, and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who also won the WBC Super Cruiserweight World Championship by defeating Japanese Nobuhiro Ishida, shared the same ring, not the same house, unlike many brothers that night. They all won their matches. It was a good day for the Alvarez family.

Canelo had his first big night in May 2010 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Floyd Mayweather Jr and Shane Mosley were fighting in the main event. Canelo, on the other hand, showed himself in the lower matches of the night together with Jessie Vargas. In September of the same year, he changed his route to the west. He went to Los Angeles, the City of Angels. While Shane Mosley could not beat Sergio Mora in the main match, Canelo won the silver belt in the WBC Super Half-Middleweight by defeating Manuel Baldomir. On the same night, names such as Victor Ortiz and Keith Thurman also filled the lower matches of the night. Boxing's current and future stars were appearing in Los Angeles.

When Canelo went to the USA again, this time his goal was the World Championship Belt. When he was only 20 years old, he won his first title by defeating Matthew Hatton by the unanimous decision of the referees at the Honda Center in California. He defended his title for the second time against Alfonso Gomez in his second match at Honda Center. After fighting in the USA for the first time in 2010, Canelo has always followed the USA-Mexico-USA route and appeared in the ring in his own country after his match in the USA.

After his title match with Shane Mosley in Las Vegas in May 2012, he never appeared in the ring in Mexico again. Now Canelo was too big for Mexico. He defeated the star name of the period, Shane Mosley, by the joint decision of three referees. After the match, he thanked Mosley for giving him this opportunity. Pacquiao challenged Mayweather and Cotto. At the end of the match, Shane Mosley summarized Canelo's style by saying, "His counter punches are very good, he throws clean and powerful punches to the body." Finally, Mosley both gave Canelo his due and admitted that his time was up by saying, "If you are being defeated by children in the ring, it is time to retire. I put everything in, but I lost to someone who fights better than me." The 22-year-old Canelo retired the 40-year-old Mosley, who will be inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame, that day in Vegas.

After comfortably defeating Josesito Lopez with a technical knockout, he defeated Austin Trout in San Antonio for the title of another federation. He had to do this in order to add the WBA belt to his WBC belt. With two belts, recognition in the USA and the support of 120 million Mexican people, it was now a suitable situation for the money man Floyd Mayweather.

on 14 September 2013

He was very good at counter-hitting, he was a tough boxer, and he could work with the body, but despite everything, he was only a 22-year-old immature young man. Floyd would receive $41 million and Canelo would receive $12 million. 2.2 million people paid money to the pay-per-view system to watch this match. Total broadcast revenue reached $150 million. This match was watched in 8 out of 10 homes in Mexico that night.

He answered the question of what happened at the end of the match by saying, "It's simple, I couldn't catch him, he is a very fast and smart fighter." Floyd Mayweather Jr. defeated Canelo by majority decision with scores of 116-112, 117-111, and 114-114, his first and only defeat until September 11, 2018.